


This Is the Future (You Are Alive)

by ShowMeAHero



Series: Fly to the Sun [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Babies, Domestic, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kid Fic, M/M, Poe Dameron Hurts So Prettily, Post-Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-17
Updated: 2016-01-17
Packaged: 2018-05-14 11:34:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5742235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When a war goes on for long enough, people start to settle into it. They make homes out of bases, they make lovers out of comrades, and they make families out of a desperate need to know that the war will end and a future will come.</p><p>Alternatively: the one where Poe and Finn obtain a child.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Is the Future (You Are Alive)

**Author's Note:**

> A prequel explaining how Poe and Finn obtained Shara Rey. Hopefully this prequel goes over better than The Phantom Menace did.
> 
>  **Warning:** this fic contains mentions of sterility. Just a heads-up in case that bothers you.
> 
> Title taken from ["This Is The Future" by Owl City](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9kztEQZ3ms).

When a war goes on for long enough, people start to settle into it. They make homes out of bases, they make lovers out of comrades, and they make families out of a desperate need to know that the war will end and a future will come. Snap was no exception to this phenomenon; Finn learned that when he was first introduced to Snap’s wife, Isonda, and his two children, Norra and Lore. Norra was brand-new, a tiny, wiggly little thing with a red face and a set of lungs that made Finn flinch when he first met her.

Poe, of course, took to her right away. Snap was clearly proud to show off his daughter to his commander, and Poe was delighted to meet her. Isonda handed the baby over easily as soon as she saw Poe. Lore, a little black-haired boy who seemed absolutely thrilled to see Poe, was running circles around his ankles and grabbing at his pant legs, competing with his sister for Poe’s attention. Poe beckoned Finn closer, and Finn approached hesitantly. Poe poked at his arms until they were in a position that he deemed acceptable to put the baby in. Finn adjusted his grip on her, moving slowly and gingerly, watching her as she stared up at him with the blank lack of focus that newborns tended to have. Poe backed off, letting Finn acclimate to the child. Lore had started attempting to scale Finn’s back, clawing at his pants and jacket.

“She’s cute,” Rey commented from Poe’s left, leaning against the wall next to him. Poe glanced down at her before turning his attention back to Finn.

“She sure is,” Poe agreed. Lore had successfully climbed Finn and was presently attempting to sit on his shoulders while Finn laughed and reached back to hold onto him with one hand, gripping the baby with the other. Snap sidled up to Poe and Rey, folding his arms and rocking on his heels next to Poe.

“She’s something else, isn’t she?” Snap said, happy and proud, grinning away.

“Isonda or Norra?” Rey asked, and Snap just nodded.

“Yes,” he answered. “Both.” He smiled broadly and clapped Poe on the shoulder. “You guys ever think about maybe giving it a shot?”

Rey snorted, shaking her head, but Poe tipped his head, watching Finn as he murmured softly to Norra, Lore sitting quietly on his shoes and staring up at him. Finn looked up at Poe, making eye contact almost instantly, and Poe smiled at him. Finn smiled back, soft, happy, before he looked back down at Norra, continuing to talk to her. Realizing that Snap was still looking at him, waiting for an answer, Poe shrugged.

“I don’t know,” he said, watching Finn. “Maybe.”

Later that night, after they had left Snap and Isonda to their own devices, and Rey had vanished to trick the night mess hall staff into giving her snacks, Poe found himself in his and Finn’s shared quarters. Finn was stripping off his day clothes, tugging his shirt off over his head and tossing it at Poe before he started digging through their drawers for his night clothes. Poe sat cross-legged on their bed, bare-chested and already wearing his sleep pants. He fiddled absently with Finn’s shirt, watching him out of the corner of his eye as he changed.

“Hey,” Poe finally spoke up, and Finn looked up at him from where he was plugging BB-8 into their charging station. Finn smiled at him.

“Hey,” Finn said back, standing up and approaching the foot of their bed. He leaned down over Poe, and Poe tipped his head back to smile at him. Finn edged around to the side of their bed, then climbed up onto the mattress, pinning Poe down horizontally on the bed, pressing his face into Poe’s neck and kissing his skin. Poe turned his head into Finn, edging their mouths together for a long, slow moment before pulling away.

“Have you ever thought about having kids?” Poe asked, biting the bullet, and Finn frowned at him, brow furrowing. He climbed off of Poe, kneeling beside him on the mattress. Poe sat up, leaning back on one hand, studying the expressive flickers of emotion crossing Finn’s face as he thought through Poe’s question.

“No,” he finally answered honestly. He looked up to meet Poe’s eyes. “Don’t you think it’d be dangerous?”

“Yeah,” Poe said. He sat up fully, hunching over his hands clasped in his lap. “No, yeah, you’re right, I just-”

“Hey,” Finn interrupted, reaching out to put one of his big hands over Poe’s. Poe looked up at him, bottom lip between his teeth, and Finn reached up with his other hand to pull his lip free with his thumb. “Don’t be nervous. You’re never nervous. Why are you nervous?”

“I’m nervous because…” Poe trailed off, thinking, and Finn thumbed his lip free again. “Because I really don’t know what I’m doing, I guess. I always expected… Well, I don’t know. I just thought it would be something that I’d do. Then, I was thinking maybe it’d be something that _we’d_ do.” Poe turned one of his hands up to grasp Finn’s and squeeze it. “Does that make any sense?”

“Kind of,” Finn said. “But it’s just me. You don’t have to be nervous.”

“It’s just you,” Poe echoed, smiling. He looked down at their joined hands and laughed. “Sorry. You’re right, it is dangerous. I just always thought we might, and seeing you with Norra today made me think, you know, why not now?” He glanced up at Finn. “Why not now, because we don’t know what the future holds, and we don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow, you know?”

“If we don’t know where we’ll be tomorrow, why would we bring a kid into that?” Finn countered, and Poe shrugged, watching his face.

“Because I love you,” Poe answered. “And you love me. And we’d love _them_. And we need to know there’s going to be a future.” Poe reached up and cupped Finn’s face in his hand. “And I want you to live forever. We should have a legacy.” He stroked his thumb under Finn’s eye. “What do you think?”

Finn hesitated, then leaned in and kissed him, briefly. “I think we could think about it.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Poe pushed closer, kissing Finn again. Finn quickly took charge, pinning a laughing Poe to the mattress again.

* * *

Only a couple of weeks later, Poe got sent with Blue Squadron, Rapier Squadron, and the classified Black Squadron on a top-secret mission for General Organa. Of course, when it came to top-secret missions, Finn usually got pieces of information from a combination of Poe, Rey, C-3PO, and sometimes General Organa herself. Eventually, he was able to put the whole confidential thing together while he waited at the base for whoever was gone to come back.

Of course, Finn had not brought up their discussion from two weeks ago in the time in between, and Poe took his lead and kept quiet on the topic, as well. Finn did see Poe go and visit Snap more than once, and he almost brought it up again when he came back to their quarters, but he always managed to stop himself. He was afraid. He was afraid, and he would tell Poe that if he asked, but he hadn’t asked, so he hadn’t said. He was afraid to fuck up. He was afraid to die. He was afraid of what he wanted, because he knew how dangerous it was. He was incredibly afraid of the glimmer in Poe’s eye half the time.

But, now, Finn was sitting in the mess hall with Rey and some of the pilots from Cobalt Squadron, Stiletto Squadron, and Red Squadron, who hadn’t gone on the mission. He was poking at a meatloaf that usually he would be all over, but Poe’s check-in was two days ago and nobody on base had heard from anyone on the team since three days ago. Lieutenant Bastian sat across from them, making a volcano out of mashed potatoes when his radio chirped on his belt. He picked it up and listened to whatever code was spat at him before he jumped up out of his chair. He hesitated, looking down at Finn and Rey, before he beckoned for them to follow.

“You should come,” he told them, and Finn nearly knocked their table over in his haste to stand up. Rey grabbed her half-finished slice of meatloaf in her hand and set off after Finn as he followed Bastian to the hangar at the east edge of the base. Several large droids and a couple of Resistance members were pushing Iolo’s wrecked Dagger Squadron B-wing into the hangar, and Finn outpaced Bastian in his sprint to find _Black One_. BB-8 wheeled up to him, beeping and chirping too quickly for Finn to even begin to understand. Rey crouched down, though, and put her empty hand on BB-8’s head as she listened intently and nodded along. The scorch marks along one side of BB-8 were sending Finn’s heart into erratic palpitations. He strained to see over the crowd of people that was filling the hangar.

Rey stood up, turning in sync with BB-8 towards the same direction. Finn followed their attention to a smoldering _Black One_. The two wings on the right side of the X-wing were burned and hanging in pieces, the right side of the cockpit blown apart. All of Finn’s organs dropped to the very pit of his stomach like rocks, his hands going numb, and he took off before he even told himself to move. He bolted towards the wreck of a starfighter, pushing through the crowd, looking desperately around for any sign of Poe. Every second he couldn’t see Poe was another second his heart was pounding up into his throat.

A hand on Finn’s wrist made him jerk, startled out of his own head, and he looked down to see Jessika pulling insistently on his wrist. She was bleeding from one temple, but otherwise looked mostly okay. She kept pulling on Finn’s arm, and her mouth was moving, but Finn couldn’t seem to really hear her words. He let her lead him to a cot two medidroids were hovering over, and Finn pulled free of Jessika’s hold to push past the medidroids to the cot. Poe sat up as soon as he saw Finn’s face.

“I’m okay,” Poe insisted, and Finn grabbed his face, searching his eyes before he moved to examine the rest of his body. His flight suit had been stripped down to his waist; his legs seemed fine, but he had one large bacta patch wrapped around the right side of his torso, and one of the medidroids was beeping insistently at Finn so they could finish stitching up a gash on the side of Poe’s head. Finn ignored them to wrap his arms around Poe and hold him as close as he could get him. Poe pat his back, and Finn buried his face in Poe’s neck, inhaling the smell of burnt skin and oil and blood and pineapple. He pulled back to kiss him roughly, probably bruising his mouth as he did so.

“Don’t you dare do that to me again,” Finn threatened, voice shaking, and Poe smiled at him. Finn laughed breathlessly and pulled him into another hug. Eventually, the medidroid was able to pry them apart and get back to work stitching the gash and applying a bacta patch. Poe recounted the story of what had happened, how the First Order had found them and they had to shut everything off to avoid detection, how they tried to get away and the First Order caught them and started shooting at them, how Poe had sped through the battles over and over, shooting down each and every enemy fighter until they could get away.

“No casualties, Boss,” Jessika ran up to Poe to say, and Poe’s grin nearly ripped off his bacta patch. Finn pat his shoulder and kissed his forehead and kept staring at his dirty face. By the time the medidroids brought Poe to medbay, just to stay overnight while his bacta patches healed him, Poe was clearly exhausted, but he still asked Finn if he wouldn’t mind staying with him. Finn kissed him because he was an idiot.

“You know,” Finn said, after the medidroids left and BB-8 had finished looking Poe over and beeping frantically at him. “You scared the absolute- You just- You scared me _so badly_.” Finn turned Poe’s hand over in his, over and over, tracing the shapes of his fingers. “It made me think, I guess. It’s making me think. About what we talked about, you know.”

“Are you thinking no?” Poe asked slowly, and Finn shook his head before looking up at him.

“I was thinking…” Finn trailed off, then paused, collecting his thoughts. “I was thinking that I couldn’t stand to lose you, but that I wished there was something of you left behind. Someone left if I lose you.” Finn shook his head, letting go of Poe’s hand to lean back and rub at his neck. “And, I don’t know if this sounds dumb or not, but thinking you were… Thinking I had lost you made me want, you know, what we had discussed, instead of the other way around, which it probably should have, because I’m insane.” He glanced back up at Poe, who was grinning widely at him, looking like his face might split in half.

“So, yes? You want to do this?” Poe asked, and Finn paused before answering, because he knew there would be no going back from this point.

“Yeah, yes, I want to do this,” Finn answered, and Poe ripped off the bacta patch on his side in his haste to get up and excitedly pull Finn into his arms. Poe dragged him into the bed with him, and Finn wrapped himself around him, waiting until Poe was able to calm down enough for Finn to fix his patch before he fell asleep.

* * *

Poe was healed enough by the end of the week to get back to work on his X-wing so he could be ready to leave again if the General called for it. When Poe wasn’t working on his ship and Finn wasn’t training, they went together to medbay, where they found out that Finn was sterile, and had been since childhood. Poe had been expecting it, had been afraid of it but pretty sure of it, but he pulled Finn’s face into his neck and held him until he was breathing normally again.

“What are our options?” Poe asked their doctor and head biological scientist, Dr. Vrai, a Keshian who was frowning sympathetically at them.

“Adoption isn’t really something we manage on the base,” Vrai told them. “We don’t have any unwanted children here as of yet. But you were planning to have a genetically engineered child, were you not?”

“We were,” Poe answered, and Finn just watched their discussion.

“Well, you could always ask someone else to provide the other half of the genetic material,” Vrai suggested. Finn looked up at Poe, and Poe was pretty sure they were thinking the same thing.

The two of them invited Rey back to their quarters for lunch and asked her at once. She choked on her water and raised an eyebrow at them.

“I didn’t know you two were serious about this,” she said, and Finn rubbed at the back of his neck.

“We, uhh. Yeah. We are. But we ran into some… issues, and we were wondering if you wanted to help.” Finn smiled at her hopefully, and Poe kept building the sandwiches on the table in the corner. Rey glanced at him, and he grinned encouragingly. Poe watched as Finn and Rey seemed to be discussing it with their eyes, inside their heads, before they started talking quickly and loudly over one another. BB-8 chirped up at him, and he shrugged, finishing up their sandwiches and bringing them over to the bed where Finn and Rey were sitting.

“I wouldn’t have to actually, like…” She mimed with her hands and her torso. “I wouldn’t have to carry it, right?”

“Right, yeah, no, you wouldn’t have to do that,” Finn assured her. “They bake it in, like, a tank or something.”

“This is such a touching experience for us as a family,” Poe murmured around a bite of his sandwich. "Talking about baking our baby in a tank." Finn elbowed him in the kidney while Rey laughed.

“Of course I’ll do it,” Rey said, and Finn grabbed her, squeezing her until she punched at his back for him to let her go. She took her sandwich from Poe and took a bite of it, grinning at them. “So, what do I have to do? Just let me know. Maybe it’ll get me out of training with Master Skywalker for a day.”

As it turned out, it got her out of training with Skywalker for two days, and he even shook Finn and Poe’s hands, which made Jessika seethe with jealousy when Poe told her about it at dinner that night. By the time Finn and Poe were actually in bed at the end of the day, Finn on his back, Poe sprawled over his chest, Poe was exhausted. He smothered a yawn in Finn’s skin.

“I’m sorry,” Finn said softly, and Poe craned his neck to look up at him.

“Don’t apologize,” Poe said. “It’s not your fault. I should be apologizing to you. I wanted him to look like you.”

“Him?” Finn asked, looking down into Poe’s face, and Poe shrugged, settling back in with his ear against Finn’s chest. “I want them to look like you, so, looks like I win.”

Poe bit lightly at his chest, grinning. “Like I said. You don’t have to apologize. I know it sucks. But, you know, we’re handling it.” He smiled into Finn’s skin, wrapping his arms around Finn’s chest. “I love you.”

“I love you,” Finn echoed, fingers tracing up and down Poe’s back. Poe felt abruptly overwhelmed, and he shut his eyes tightly, smiling hard enough to hurt his cheeks.

By the end of the week, they had a tank in the lab at the back of medbay with _Dameron_ written on it and a handful of clumped cells inside. Poe went every day he was on base, sitting next to the tank with Finn and just talking. They spent months that way, usually together, unless Poe was on a mission. Rey went a lot of the time, too, and Jessika loved going and making fun of Poe endlessly while also staring in fascination at the fetus growing in the tank.

Poe, personally, was hypnotized. He loved watching Finn watch the fetus, loved the adoration and affection so plain on his face, loved how happy he was with everything they were doing. Finn had moments of doubt on a weekly basis, freaking out over how they would probably die and orphan the kid, but Poe was usually able to talk him off the ledge when it happened. He loved how invested Finn was. He loved Finn, and he loved the fetus they were watching develop into what would soon be their child, frankly terrifying as that might be.

* * *

By the end of the gestation period, Vrai had given them the date they planned to remove the child from the tank; an official “birth”, as it were. Unfortunately for Poe, apparently even children of science were ready and able to ignore that and do whatever they wanted, because their child decided to start fighting against the tank two weeks early, while Poe was away on a mission. It was unfortunate for Finn, too, because he was terrified and he had been expecting to instinctively know what to do, but he didn’t, and he was missing Poe like he only had half a body. He instructed BB-7 to ask General Organa to request Poe’s immediate return.

He had Rey, but it wasn’t the same. Also, Rey screamed a lot, squeezing Finn’s hand and staring hard through the huge window separating them from the lab with the tank. She kept hopping up and down and shouting in Finn’s ear and Finn’s nerves were totally shot by the end of the end of the removal procedure. Also by the end of it, though, Finn got handed a baby that he had been watching develop for months, but was now an actual living being that cried and breathed and stared up at him with these huge brown eyes that he recognized from his husband’s face.

The door to the lab slammed open, and Finn jumped, biting back a startled scream. Poe was standing in the doorway, chest heaving, still in his full flight suit, helmet and all. He pulled off his helmet and let it fall to the ground with a heavy _clang_ , but his attention was totally fixated on the newborn Finn was holding tight to his chest. Rey watched from the corner of the room, smiling as Poe slowly approached Finn. BB-8 spun into the room after him, beeping falling silent as they took in the room and quietly wheeled over to Rey.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” Poe whispered, and Finn laughed.

“You’re not late,” Finn said. “She was early.”

“She?” Poe said softly, glancing up at Finn only briefly before he looked back down at their baby. Poe tugged off his gloves and let them fall to the floor, as well, before shucking off his flight suit to the waist, upper half of the suit dangling against his legs. He frowned down at his hands. “I’m so dirty.”

“Here,” Rey said, pulling out handfuls of wet tissue from a box Snap had left them. She helped Poe scrub down his hands and arms until he was as clean as they could get him, and Finn carefully handed over their daughter, gingerly settling her in Poe’s arms. Poe bent his head over her, twin heads of brown curls tangling together. He pressed his lips to her forehead and shut his eyes, inhaling deeply. Finn brushed the tears off of Poe’s cheeks with his thumb.

“She’s amazing,” Poe laughed tearfully, opening his eyes to study her face. He looked up at Rey, smiling. “She looks like you.”

“She looks like  _you_ ,” Rey countered. She stepped forward, tracing the shape of the child’s lips, of her nose.

“Good work, both of you,” Finn commented. “I don’t think my genes would’ve helped at all. She’s perfect like this.”

“I love her.” Poe looked up at Finn, beaming like the sun was trapped inside of his head. “I love you. I love you both. Thank you so much.” He bent his head over the newborn again, holding her tight and close to his chest, and he shook. Finn let him have the moment, his own chest feeling overwhelmingly full as he watched them together, his throat tight, his hands tingling, before he stepped in and wrapped his arms around him, their daughter caught between their chests.

“Do you want to go with the name we were thinking of?” Finn asked, and Poe nodded, lifting his head to kiss Finn so softly that his touch felt lighter than air.

“Thank you,” Poe whispered, and Finn kissed him back.

“Thank _you_ ,” Finn echoed, and Poe knocked their foreheads together before returning his attention to the baby.

“So?” Rey asked, and Finn had almost totally forgotten she was there. He turned back to look at her smiling face. “What’s her name?”

“Shara Rey Dameron,” Finn told her, and Rey muffled a shout against her hand before throwing her arms around Finn and hugging him tightly. Before Finn could hug her back, she had already moved on to Poe, squeezing him from the side to avoid crushing the baby, who just kept staring with startlingly familiar cinnamon-brown eyes, unfocused and stunning. Finn leaned down to kiss her forehead. Rey left them alone, and Finn let Poe sit down, since he was clearly exhausted, bags under his eyes obvious even through his shining excitement.

“So,” Finn said. “This is life now.” He ran his fingers through Poe’s hair, nails scraping against his scalp. Poe nodded, leaning his head against Finn’s chest, his eyes fixed on their daughter, who was starting to fall asleep. Poe yawned.

“This is life,” Poe murmured. He tipped their baby so their faces were closer. “Hi, Shara. Sorry I was late.”

“She forgives you, I’m sure,” Finn promised, and Poe laughed quietly. “She cries so loud, Poe, I swear. It was insane.”

“Looks like your genes got in there anyways, then,” Poe teased, and Finn knocked his shoulder lightly. Poe leaned his head back against Finn’s chest, grinning up at him, neck craned back to look up into his face. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Finn tangled his hands in Poe’s hair and hunched down to kiss him. Poe turned his attention back to Shara, pressing his pinky finger against her tiny palm. She wrapped her fingers around his pinky, and Finn watched Poe’s face as he fell completely in love with her. He knew exactly how it felt.

**Author's Note:**

> Fake science! All sorts of babies! Bacta patches! Sandwiches! Good times! Let 'em roll!
> 
> You can follow me on Twitter at [@nicoIodeon](https://twitter.com/nicoIodeon) or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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